More On O'Hare UFO

Alan Boyle's Cosmic Log over at MSNBC features a more or less balanced discussion of the O'Hare UFO sighting and links to interesting photos of unusual cloud formations.

More than 3,000 reports of unidentified flying objects were sent to the National UFO Reporting Center over the past year - but not one has generated as much buzz as November's sighting at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport. Was it a metallic-looking, saucer-shaped object rising through the clouds, or nothing more than a meteorological oddity? It's hard to figure out whether the truth is really out there, but one thing is for sure: Clouds can do some positively alien-looking things.

Peter Davenport, the UFO center's director, says the buzz over the O'Hare sighting is fully justified.

"In my opinion, because I know the quality of the witnesses, and because I know the nature of the documents that were generated, it is one of the most dramatic cases of the year 2006 that this center has handled," Davenport told me today from the center's headquarters in Washington state.

On the other side, NBC News space analyst James Oberg - a longtime UFO skeptic - says the evidence that's come to light so far isn't all that compelling.